Author: Amanda C

Some of you may have noticed me mention “Uncle Skeeter” in passing in a few of my Presto posts. Since Skeeter has now proven that he is, in fact, a very important part of the Presto family, I thought it was only fair that he get his own little post.

When they first moved Sadie and Presto to an outside pen at the vet clinic, I felt sorry for whatever horse might end up next to them. Momma bear tends to be… well… a bear when it comes to her babies. She even gave serious what-for to her BFF Lissa at home when they were in paddocks next to each other with their babies, and there’s no one in the world that Sadie loves more than Lissa. So I was surprised to see that she was actually quite tolerant of Skeeter, the Cushings gelding that was in the pen next to them. She made some ugly faces at him the first couple days, but Skeeter was quite undeterred by her theatrics and that was pretty much the end of it.

Now Skeeter and Presto love to hang out. Presto will go over there and stick his nose into Skeeter’s pen to sniff him and say Hello. And Skeeter has taken it upon himself to be Presto’s protector. Any time a new horse gets put into the pen on the other side of Skeeter, he makes sure that the horse knows they have to stay at the opposite end of the pen from wherever Presto is. Especially that one polo mare that was there for a few days and, according to Skeeter, kept making very inappropriate eyes at Presto. He kept her herded up into a corner the whole time.

Skeeter is pretty severely Cushings, and has some kind of wound on his face. I don’t know much about him except that he’s been ready to go home for a couple weeks now but no one has come to pick him up yet. I think he’s just someone’s not-very-important pasture puff. I’m kinda glad they’ve left him there, though, because apparently Sadie thinks he’s a crucial family member, too.

They tried to move Skeeter somewhere else last week so they could thoroughly clean his pen (Cushings = pees a lot) and Sadie absolutely lost her mind. To the point where they just turned around and put him back in the pen because she was about to SadieSmash the barn to smithereens. I guess she has decided that Skeeter is the only approved babysitter and he isn’t allowed to leave.

I jokingly (or not) told Michelle that we may end up having to take Skeeter home with us if he still hasn’t been picked up by the time Presto is ready to come home. He seems perfectly suited for the role of babysitter.

I made the drive back up to Lamesa this weekend to see Presto again. I’m cringing at all the miles I’m putting on my truck with these 10 hour round trips (think I’m gonna try to rent a car next time) but it’s totally worth it to visit the little nugget. While I was on my way up there I got this text from his vet:

I just love her. She’s so invested in Presto, and it makes all the difference. Especially because she’s spent the last 16 days medicating him every 6 hours pretty much by herself. She’s gotta be tired of seeing 4am by this point. But y’all – look at how great he’s pooping!!! It’s not normal baby poop yet, but it’s getting close.

When I rolled in on Saturday he was up and nursing with gusto. Definitely a much stronger, happier baby than I left the weekend before. He still does everything a little bit in slow motion compared to a “normal” foal, but his curiosity is back and he likes to watch all the goings-on at the clinic.

Sadie seemed to be feeling a little neglected, so I ran up the street to the farm supply store and bought a curry comb and a brush. I spent a good 45 minutes grooming her and giving her mints, which seemed to make her happy, and then Presto inserted himself for some grooming too.

I hung out for a while, because at this point it’s such a privilege to still have him that I can watch him for hours without getting bored. My main observation after sitting there all afternoon was that he’s eating like a MACHINE. They’ve been increasing his non-muzzled time every day, and he takes full advantage. Developmentally he looks more like a 3 day old baby than a 2 1/2 week old… obviously his growth kind of came to a screeching halt when he got sick, as his body was occupied with trying to stay alive instead of filling out. It appears that he’s trying to make up for lost time with gusto, because he eats pretty much non-stop. Between nursing and experimenting with hay and a few nibbles of Sadie’s grain, he’s absolutely going to town.

He’s still the same goofy, sweet baby that I remember from his first couple days of life, too.

By the time I left on Saturday he had finally laid down to nap. It’s like he spent so much time laying down while he was super sick that he really DOES NOT want to lay down anymore until he absolutely has to. Stubborn little dude.

On Saturday night a storm and cold front blew through, and it was COLD on Sunday morning. Cold and wet and gross. I stole one of Michelle’s baby blankets and hightailed it up to the clinic early. Little guy doesn’t have much fat to keep him insulated, and I’d rather he not waste calories trying to stay warm.

I was greeted with a loud, trumpeting whinny (kid has got some lungs on him) but when I put the blanket on he was PISSED. He took off cantering a couple laps around the pen, trying to fling it off, then slipped and almost fell so decided to just stand there and glare at me instead. You’re welcome, Presto.

He’s pretty cute when he’s mad though.

I dunno if it was the cold weather or if he was just feeling better, but he was quite active. He was aggressively nursing (like for real I felt a little sorry for Sadie, all the head slamming into her udder seems unnecessary), kept backing his butt up to the wall and threatening to kick it, exploring and stomping through the puddles in his pen, etc.

And then, quite deliberately on his part, he backed that curly little butt up and NAILED me in the shin with a foot. Turd! But the fact that he feels good enough to be naughty… I was ecstatic. Granted, a little offended that he kicked ME first instead of the vet (I mean come on), but that’s ok. We’ll call it a love tap. He thought that was a pretty fun trick and tried it a couple more times before I finally had to be a responsible parent and get after him for it. He was pretty undeterred by my discipline though. He’s definitely his mother’s child.

When it was time for his morning meds I had to hold him still for her to inject them into his IV catheter because he was too full of beans to willingly stand. And we’re all totally fine with that.

Overall he’s doing well. His vet made sure to say “He’s not totally out of the woods yet, but he’s doing good.”. She’s conservative with her optimism, which I appreciate. The real test will come this week as they start backing Presto off all of his injectable meds. He’ll be on his oral tummy stuff for a while, but it’s time to start weaning him off all the antibiotics and other stuff. Fingers crossed that he keeps doing well without it!

Those of you who watched the video from Presto’s very first hour of life know that he was born talking. Baby horse apparently has lots to say, because his first couple days were filled with lots of adorable little whinnies, especially at people. Then he got sick and was too busy fighting for his life and feeling miserable to talk anymore, and we went a long time without hearing anything from Presto.

Until yesterday, that is.

His main vet Dr. Kari was greeted first thing in the morning with a loud “GET OVER HERE AND TAKE THIS MUZZLE OFF SO I CAN HAVE BREAKFAST” demand. He can make all the demands he wants right now, if he’s feeling good enough to talk it’s fine by us. Then he neighed at Uncle Skeeter (the Cushings horse that has been living next to them at the clinic), and said hello to one of Michelle’s friends when she came to visit him.

Little dude is making up for lost time I guess, because now he has a lot to say, and it makes us all SO HAPPY.

We also had another amazing development yesterday: semi-solid poop. When your baby horse has been shooting 100% liquid out of his butt for 12 days, you have no idea how exciting semi-solid poop really is. Yesterday’s update from Dr. Kari:

Only horse people really understand the importance of proper poop.

That’s the only update I got yesterday, but fingers crossed so hard for an equally good one today. I really hope he can keep getting better and stronger from here. I’m heading back up there bright and early tomorrow morning to visit him!

Presto might hate his muzzle, and he might look a little bit like the baby horse version of Hannibal Lector in it, but *knocking on every wood surface within reach* so far it’s working.

Yesterday morning they took the muzzle off briefly, and he readily went over and nursed (that is victory #1, because when he truly feels bad he has no interest in nursing). They watched him for a while to see if he would get colicky (pre-muzzle he would nurse and then within 15 or so minutes he’d be colicky) and he never did! So the plan is to slowly and steadily increase his nursing time to ease his intestines back into a normal routine.

In the meantime Presto will still be getting his plasma and extra fluids to make sure he’s getting what his body needs. His electrolytes still kind of fluctuate a lot day by day or even hour by hour, so they’re constantly checking that and adjusting the content and quantity of his fluids as needed.

A lot of you have asked how Sadie is handling all this, and the answer is: like Sadie does. She’s a beast but she’s very intelligent when it matters, and she’s been pretty great. Well… once they moved her to the outside pen, because she was SadieSmashing the stall inside (she legit left gouges in the metal from her teeth). But she allows the vets to do whatever they need to do with Presto, and she stands dutifully over him while he sleeps, which is a lot. She knows that something is up with him, because when he lays down for what she deems to be too long, she tries to get him up. I don’t think she quite understands why he doesn’t act like a “normal” baby (ie a terrorist in a tiny horse suit) but she’s pretty patient about it.

We’re to the point where the updates from the vets are becoming less frequent, which… is generally a good thing. “No news is good news” and all that. Not that it lowers my anxiety level even a smidge, but it’s nice to know that he’s probably not in their top 3 most critical patients anymore. I’ll take that any day, even if it means less communication. I’m just really really (really really really) hoping the the positive trajectory continues and things get better for the little nugget from here.

While Presto’s foal fort experiment was a failure, the muzzle was a success. He was really angry about it, but yesterday he wasn’t colicky at all. He got extra fluids and more plasma via his IV, and this morning they’re going to re-ultrasound to see how his small intestine looks. Fingers majorly crossed for a less angry, more normal looking intestine so that he can try having some milk again.

Amidst all of this going on with Presto, Henry has been a bit of the forgotten child. Luckily he doesn’t seem to mind, and everyone was more than willing to make sure he was taken care of while I was gone. The barn worker kept him fly sprayed, and Karen even went over once last week to give him cookies. Apparently he was not derpy around her, which makes me think it really must be me.

I came home to a fat, sassy Henry who seemed happy to see me (it’s probably just because I equal more cookies, but whatever) and seems to have not missed a beat. And, honestly, being around him has really helped to raise my spirits in general. My thoughts are still always with Presto, but Henry provides some much needed levity to the current situation. It’s funny, before Presto was born I was stressing out about which shows I was going to get to and how badly I needed a dressage lesson, blah blah blah. All of that is on hold now, and none of it really feels like it matters that much. I’m just really thankful to have Henry.

Really hoping that we get some good news for Presto with today’s ultrasound… little dude has been fighting so hard for so long, he deserves to have things start getting a little easier for him.